2902
by Mysteriol
Summary: Because there will always be 29th February on the calender if you know where to look. [touya birthday ficlet]


2902 

_a/n: _

_being the rabid txn fangirl that i am, i couldn't resist throwing in just a teensie weensie bit (though promise it's just a very small pinch of it!) of txn in this fic. but on account of touya-kun's birthday, just for our favorite touya-kun (you and i know it, ne? XD), wouldn't you just go ahead and read this fic regardless whatever shipping you support? (X _

_Because there will always be 29th February on the calender if you know where to look. touya birthday ficlet _

_-_

There is no 29th February on the calender this year. And Touya knows the fact very well.

He's been telling himself all week (or convincing himself, anyway), that it won't kill him if nobody ever bothers because it's just yet. _another_. year. It's not like it'll be the end of the world if no one remembers. There's nothing extraordinary about it for another year to pass by without hearing the very unfamiliar words of "happy birthday, Touya".

So that doesn't explain why he's feeling strange today, and locked up in the music room of Seijouu High. It won't be so funny if he's having fun playing the piano, enjoying himself immensely, but that's not the case. Touya's supposed to close his eyes, and let the music take him somewhere else. The feeling he later analyses makes no sense at all.

He can't be upset. Nope, that's something five-year-olds do. Feeling sorrow and self-pity just because his birthday has to fall on one of the rarest dates in the calender ever. So he's spent two hours in this piano room, already running enough mantras through his head that goes along the lines of: _It's just another day. I don't need birthday wishes. It won't kill me. It's just the day I was born. _

Or maybe it's the fact that it's 1st March today, and he's seen some of his schoolmates celebrating on their joyous occasions. Touya, jealous? He doesn't think so. How can he be? It's not like he cares if he sees those schoolmates of his carrying large balloons floating around mid-air, long stalks of blooming flowers between their fingers, friends coming up to pat them on their backs screaming "happy birthday, tomodatchi-san!" in their ears.

It's not like he cares if it's supposed to be 29th February rightfully on this day.

Repeat, Touya. It will _not _bother you that it's supposed to be your birthday today.

Touya rolls his eyes.

Yeah, right. He thinks. _Who am I kidding? _

And realizes he's running unnecessary appregios and chromatics down the ivory keys. Now he's gone and snapped - he's taking it out on these poor black and white musical instruments, and they aren't even at fault.

Touya wants to bury his face, or knock himself out with a baseball bat, when he even dares to wonder why Nadeshiko couldn't have held a little, just a little bit longer, so perhaps, just maybe, he can celebrate his birthday just like any other normal ordinary person on the 1st of March instead.

Instead, he's hoping he's at home sleeping this day off. Anything's better than rotting his feelings of self-pity in here.

Even the calender hung up in front of the music room wall is mocking him. It's printed MARCH 1ST in bold capital letters, and Touya glares at it with narrowed eyes. Now he's talking to himself - first sign of insanity, right? "Go away," he tells it. Then thinks his brain's turned to mush.

So now, maybe, maybe he's alone. So it doesn't matter if he admits it to himself, right? It doesn't matter if he's being honest just for once, right?

Touya bangs his head against the piano. Twice, then thrice.

Stupid, stupid. How can such a trivial matter (it's just a birthday, for Kami-sama's sake!) mean so much to him?

He lies if he says he doesn't know the answer.

It's because, it's. his. birthday, after all.

And when Touya finds his head suddenly snapping up because his reaction time's fast, and he's responding to a change in air dynamics (Touya's best subject in Seijouu High is Physics even though he likes Chemistry best) plus molecules etcetera, it doesn't explain why he can't stop blinking and looking very much like a performing guppy (his mouth can't stop closing and opening) this moment...

...when all he hears are very familiar voices, and noisy, well, noisy noises. Barging through the music room door this instant.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KINOMOTO-SAN!"

These are girls from his class, who are happily, gamely blowing party poppers from their lips. Banners drape onto their forms with fancy kanji characters that shout his name TOUYA! (plus the exclamation mark) proudly.

Touya doesn't have time to react this time, when the more boisterious bunch of boys in his class, rush up to him in some form of rhinocerous-like stampede, and clap him on the back so hard, he rolls all the way to the floor, uttering "oof" like some doofus, then have them _sitting _on his form.

"Get off me, Makasaki!" He yells, and begins to think his back will take five days to recover from the crunch he's hearing.

"KINOMOTO NO BAKA, it's your birthday!" And some classmates (he can't make out the faces in this mess of crowd. The girls aren't helping singing the birthday song in very high octaves) shout back right into his ears so that he goes deaf for a full second.

"TANJOUBI OMEDETOU, KINOMOTO-SAN!!"

Then the room's so bright with colored lights and all, it blinds Touya momentarily.

But it's the same moment in time, when he realizes (and he doesn't even mind the pain in his sore back anymore) nothing matters anymore, because he isn't alone on the 1st of March, when to him, they remember, and it means enough.

Through the crowd of girls, and rowdy boys, Touya sees through it all and glimpses the unmistakable silhouette of Akizuki Nakuru.

She's smiling genuinely, cheerfully, and her cheeks are always pink. A hand shoots up, and it waves excitedly. Touya notes how her eyes sparkles when she does it, all the time. Her braided brown hair reflects her similarly-colored eyes.

It doesn't take any words, for her eyes to reach his then, in the simple message:

_I'm happy you're happy, Touya-kun! Happy birthday! _

And Touya knows it's impossible to not smile then and there, on the floor, even though he's squashed flat like a grape by the boys in his class.

Because when he knows Nakuru remembers, and has gathered their classmates to celebrate this day with him, he's not very lonely anymore.

It's his special day today, after all.

...And that's when Touya realizes, there'll always be 29th February on the calender if he knows where to look.

**owari **

_and a very, very happy birthday, touya-kun! _

XD


End file.
